WhenPiper Curdawas a Disney Channel kid appearing in "A.N.T. Farm" and "Teen Beach 2," she couldn't imagine one day headlining a majorPixarfilm. Well, she could but maybe not playing a beaver.
Starring in the new animated sci-fi comedy"Hoppers"(in theaters now), "I never thought I would ever be here," she says. "But I am and it feels like a cosmic joke and I don't really know how I got here."
Curda plays Mabel, a 19-year-old animal lover and college student who wars with the city's mayor (Jon Hamm) about a highway bypass being built on the glade where she spent many a day with her beloved grandma.
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She discovers her biology professor's technology, which enables human minds to be transferred into robotic animals, and "hops" into a high-tech beaver to stop urban development. Mabel befriends dam-building King George (Bobby Moynihan), runs afoul of an insect queen (Meryl Streep) and meets a ton of critters, from an emoji-loving lizard to a professional killer-for-hire shark.
The movie has taken her all over the world, even to the real town of Beaverton, Oregon, and Curda, 28, is loving every minute. "My journey's had a lot of ups and downs and it's never just been a steady climb," she says. "It's always been a little all over the place but always felt right."
Here's what new fans need to know about the latest Pixar star:
Piper Curda can relate to her Disney character's anger
From righteous anger over school pets being caged up in classrooms to her mayoral feud, Mabel has quite the temper that the glade helps her to handle. And Curda felt very seen by her character.
"It really struck me how much she struggles with her emotions and her rage issues and just her caringness that just feels so overwhelming," Curda says. "I relate to that really hard, just feeling like you have too many feelings and you don't know where to put them. And maybe because you have so many, they come out in ways that aren't especially productive. But that's just you and that's just life. A lot of people are like that."
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She was cast in 'Hoppers' thanks to her TikTok catharsis
For a long time, Curda would tell her friends, "If I ever make a TikTok, it's over for me. I'm never going to do that." Then three years ago, during the actor's strike, she did create an account and would makefunny and honest videosabout how she was feeling at the time. "Hoppers" director Daniel Chong found her TikTok and decided she was his Mabel.
Doing those videos was "a therapeutic journey for me," Curda says. "I didn't go on with any sort of gimmick. I just went on there and I just talked about my life. And it was really fascinating to see the response of people being like, 'I feel like you're my friend.' I forget that everybody else doesn't know what I know about the industry and about the processes and things that we go through."
Piper Curda comes from a family of actors
Curda's four siblings are all actors: older sister Riley Chai ("Jane by Design"), younger brother Major ("Riverdale") and younger sisters Glory ("Nightingale" podcast) and Saylor ("Twisted Metal"). Their parents were "stupidly supportive of all of us because we all had this crazy pipe dream," Piper Curda says. "We could have all been really untalented or bad, and they were like, 'Sure, let's go do this.' "
Born in Tallahassee, Florida, Curda watched "The Wizard of Oz" when she was a little girl and "it like unlocked something in me. I made everyone call me Dorothy for like 9 months straight," she says. It was also the beginning of her wanting to perform: The family moved to Chicago when she was 7 and a year later she had her first role in a production of "The King and I." "I was like, 'Oh, I love this and I want to chase this feeling for the rest of my life.' "
Mabel (voiced by Piper Curda) has her mind blown by her college professor's new technology in "Hoppers." But where does the sci-fi comedy stack up against the studio's other animated hits? We rank all 30 Pixar movies from worst to best. " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
29. "Cars 3" (2017): What the third installment in the "Cars" franchise has going for it mostly is that it's not "Cars 2."" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
27. "The Good Dinosaur" (2015): Once you get past the gimmick – the meteor that took out the dinosaurs whizzed right by and the dinos have evolved into a talking, farming, herding society – the plot is pretty simplistic. It doesn't feel nearly sophisticated enough for Pixar." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
26. "Onward" (2020): Despite a touching finish, this offbeat road movie about two elf brothers traveling with their dead dad's sentient legs never quite gels. " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
24. "Elio" (2025): Pixar throws back with this familiar sci-fi project, in which a boy disaffected by Earth becomes BFFs with an alien. Best for a kid who's never seen "E.T."" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
23. "Elemental" (2023): Water guy Wade digs the fiery personality of Ember in this vibrant film, which overreaches with its ambitions to be both peppy rom-com and emotional immigrant story. " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
21. "Lightyear" (2022): In Pixar's meta version of "Star Wars," Chris Evans is an inspired choice to be the overly serious Buzz Lightyear, who has to train up a bunch of rookies to take on the evil Zurg." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
18. "Finding Dory" (2016): The sequel takes Ellen DeGeneres' forgetful fish Dory and gives depth and context to her disability." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
17. "Toy Story 4" (2019): The fourth "Toy Story" is slighter and more adventure-driven than "3," but it still delivers a poignant sendoff to our favorite cowboy and space ranger. Plus, it gave us Forky, a spork with a death wish who's charming chaos. " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
16. "Luca" (2021): A young sea creature named Luca explores the world outside the ocean with the help of Alberto, a slightly older half-human, half-fish. The queer allegory is undeniable, as Luca grapples with identity, prejudice and acceptance." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
15. "Soul" (2020): A jazzy riff on humanity and the hereafter with Pixar's first Black lead character, a band teacher who meets a jaded soul and asks big questions about the meaning of life." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
11. "Hoppers" (2026): King George (voiced by Bobby Moynihan, left) helps Mabel (Piper Curda) learn about the ways of animals when she has her mind transferred into a robotic beaver in a hilariously subversive sci-fi comedy." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
10. "Turning Red" (2022): A brainy, boy-crazy Chinese-Canadian teen in the throes of puberty learns you don't have to hide the messier parts of yourself." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
8. "Inside Out 2" (2024): The sequel introduces Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke) into the emotional mix, and chaos ensues inside and out of now-teenage Riley. It's a clever and ambitious exploration of puberty." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
3. "Coco" (2017): Pixar's adventure in the Land of the Dead found a new way for the studio to examine loss and grief. We dare you not to weep through the last 10 minutes when "Remember Me" comes on. " style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> All 30 Pixar movies, definitively ranked (including 'Hoppers')
Mabel (voiced by Piper Curda) has her mind blown by her college professor's new technology in"Hoppers."But where does the sci-fi comedy stack up against the studio's other animated hits? We rank all 30 Pixar movies from worst to best.
She gained important perspective as a Disney kid
Curda eventually moved out to LA and "auditioned for every single project Disney Channel had and did not book a single one," she recalls. Just when she was about done with Disney, she ended up starring in the sitcom "I Didn't Do It" for two seasons. At 16, "I remember thinking it's only going to go up from here," she says. However, "that's not how careers work and not how Hollywood works."
She had an "awakening" that everything wasn't going to exactly perfect every time. So she went to college, which helped her gain even more perspective. (She earned an interpersonal communications degree fromWheaton College.) "A lot of people just do acting and that's it, and that's so much of what I do, but I also knew that I needed to have more going on in my life that wasn't just that," Curda says.
'Hoppers' star is 'down for anything' in her Hollywood career
Recently, Curda has appeared on a number of TV series including "The Morning Show," "Matlock" and "Watson." She also starred in 2019's "The Wretched" and continues being "in my indie horror bag" with two movies coming soon, tech thriller "CognAItive" and horror comedy "The Dregs," about a group of vacationing friends who uncork a cursed bottle of grappa.
"That's kind of my thing, I'm down for anything," says Curda, adding that she'd like to do something that's "super-heavy action."
As for what's immediately next: "Sleeping for like a month probably."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:'Hoppers' star Piper Curda goes from Disney kid to Pixar breakout